Beautiful?
by EternalRandomChick
Summary: This is what was going through San's mind when Ashitaka told her that she was beautiful. I don't know why, but I love writing in San's point of view!


**A/N: Well, this is my third one-shot in San's point of view. I don't know why, but I love writing in her POV! Enjoy, this takes place during the scene in the movie when Ashitaka tells San that she's beautiful and what was going through her mind when he told her that.**

* * *

My head hurt. All I could remember was that boy with the cursed arm stepping between me and the gunwoman. How had he gotten cursed like that? As more memories came back, I remembered that I had gotten knocked out somehow very shortly after he had shown the power of his curse. I noticed that there was a motion beneath me, as though I was riding on one of my brothers. But there was a sound like hoof-beats now, unlike the soft padded footfalls of my brothers. I opened my eyes and found that I was riding on a red elk. The boy with the cursed arm held on to me, but as soon as I woke up, he fell off, and as he fell, I saw a hole in his flesh from where a bullet had torn its way through him.

As soon as the boy fell to the ground, one of my brothers rushed to him, grabbed his head, and began shaking him.

"Stop it!" I shouted. "Leave him, he's mine!" The elk was bucking and when I leaped to the ground, the elk ran away from the wolves. I had to wait a few seconds to regain my balance, but I was soon able to walk over to the boy.

"His own people shot him. He's dying." I was shocked; usually the humans reserved such hostility for me and the other forest animals. But here was a human, right in front of me, and he had been shot while getting me out of that gunwoman's city. I didn't know whether I should be angry or touched.

He groaned, and I decided that I should get answers now while I still had the chance. I knelt down to his level.

"Why did you stop me from killing her? Tell me, while you're still alive!" My voice, while starting out with curiosity, ended in a growl.

"I didn't want them to kill you." He whispered. If I hadn't been so angry, I would have thought that he had a nice voice, but his answer only served to make me even angrier.

"I'm not afraid to die; I'd do anything to get you _humans_ out of my forest!" I spat out the word human, mostly because he had stopped me from killing the primary enemy of the forest, but also because I didn't know why I was allowing him to live any longer. I should have killed him then and there, instead of letting the bullet wound kill him, but he spoke up again.

"I knew that from the first moment I saw you."

So he was the one who I saw in the forest, when I was tending to Mother's wound? He was this same Ashitaka? But I didn't allow any time for "fond" memories.

"And I'm not afraid of you; I should _kill_ you for saving her!" I rolled him over so that he was lying on his back, drew his sword, and drove it so that there was only a hair's width between the point of the sword and his neck. I knew that I should kill him before his wound did, but I had to make a point. "That woman is evil, and there's no one who can stop me from killing her."

"No. _Live_." He said.

He seemed to have a talent for really making me angry. "That's enough! I'm not listening to you anymore!" I prepared to drive the sword through his neck and kill him, but then his dark eyes opened and stared directly into mine, and I hesitated. I had no idea that the eyes of any human could pierce my soul, but his did. I immediately began rethinking my decision to kill him.

"You're beautiful." He whispered.

I gasped and ran back, bracing myself against one of my brothers. He had just said that I was… _beautiful_? No one had ever told me that, at least not in the way he meant it. Mother had told me that, but it was always to reassure me. I could tell that he hadn't said that I was beautiful to dissuade me from killing him, but I couldn't figure out what the real reason was for him to tell me that I was beautiful.

I was broken out of my reverie when the brother that I had run against spoke up. "What is it, San? Want me to crunch his face off?"

No, I didn't want my brother to kill him. _I _didn't even want to kill him anymore. I didn't even want his bullet wound to kill him. I was shocked that I felt this way towards a human, but I wanted him to live.


End file.
